Re: Restricted clusters?

On 7/3/07, Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I have an introduction and three questions in total, if I may:
>
> Intro: I'm creating a language that will be (phonologically speaking), a sort
> of cross between Finno-Ugric and Bantu languages. The language has the
> following structure:
>
> A set of plain, aspirated, palatalised and labialised plosives, all with
> prenasalised variants. (denoted by the "voiced" variant of the letter",
> e.g. "nd" = prenasalised "nt"
>
> Clusters are not allowed at the beginning of words, nor at the end, but
> clusters of up to two consonants are allowed medially
>
> 1)  Is it credible to restrict the consonants that can appear in clusters to
> exclude the prenasalised variants?
It doesn't seem likely to me, especially if the consonants really are
prenasalized rather than a sequence of nasal and homorganic stop. (Is
there a distinction between N+C and a prenasalized stop? That would
also be unusual.)

> 2) Is it credible to restrict initial syllables to those beginning with a
> consonant, and have vowel-initial syllables internally?
No. In fact, just the opposite pattern is typically found; that is,
typically you find only consonant-initial syllables in word-medial
position, with vowel-initial syllables allowed word-initially.

> kanta (nb cluster!)
>
> kanda (prenasalised "t")
The distinction betwen /kanta/ and /kanda/ seems unlikely to me. How
is this distinction realized phonetically?

> 3) Anyone know of a conlang that has two (or more) tones and has to use
> different diacritics to represent them over different letters (e.g. high and
> low tone over front and back vowels?)
I have no idea. But this seems to be an orthographic rather than a
phonological decision.

Bear in mind that this is *your* language, and you should do what
feels right to you in constructing it. This may include flouting
proposed universals of human language.

Dirk

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